"We can be heroes"...and make a difference in our world!

Q: What do you do when 50 zombies surround your house?A: Hope it’s Halloween!!

It is that spooktakular time of year! Sat, Oct. 29 directly after the Nyack Halloween Parade is MONSTER MASH at Nyack Center! Jen Laird White, Maria Lorenzini and Stephanie Hausner are all in for celebrity pie throw! Live music with Bossy Frog, fiendish food, goulish games! Free to enter $5 a plate of food and $5 for games.#nyackcenter#monstermash#halloweenparade#visitnyack

​Q: What do you do when 50 zombies surround your house?A: Hope it’s Halloween!!

It is that spooktakular time of year! Sat, Oct. 29 directly after the Nyack Halloween Parade is MONSTER MASH at Nyack Center! Jen Laird White, Maria Lorenzini and Stephanie Hausner are all in for celebrity pie throw! Live music with Bossy Frog, fiendish food, goulish games! Free to enter $5 a plate of food and $5 for games.#nyackcenter#monstermash#halloweenparade#visitnyack

​Nyack Center more than a community building, a place for building community through…a place we can all depend upon for a community meeting room, a holiday reading, a friendly face, and place for respite.

Nyack Center is so grateful to the Rowing Association Board, members and supporters for their contributions to Nyack Center through the years. For 10 Years the Rowing Association has raised funds for Nyack Center with their annual Pull for Purpose Rowathon. Each year they raise over $10,000 to benefit Nyack Center's programs. Since its inception, River Rowing has held rowing workshops and classes open to Nyack Center children including those at Camp Nyack!

River Rowing Association is now the Rockland Rowing Association! The mission remains the same, to improve the lives of our community members through rowing. Go Rockland! Find out more at www.riverrowing.org and like them on Facebook.

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Peter in center is pictured her with the Rockland Rowing set up crew for 2016 Rowathon!

I go by the Nyack Center to rehearse, or start setting up for an event.

The day programs are under way — there are kids playing, being led through games in the big room on the main floor, while we try out a dance routine on the stage.

A class (or two) is going on in back — cooking, ESL, tax preparation — and you can feel the evening’s event — whatever it may be — starting to take shape. Food arriving, people bringing things in. The staff telling people things they’ve had to tell them many times before. In a while volunteers will start setting chairs . . .. Someone will be speaking, singing, dancing — working toward some consensus — before long in the big room.

I will so miss the Nyack Center when we move back to NYC as we plan to do. It’s been a favorite Nyack place for me over the last 20 years — the center of this town.

— Bill Irwin American actor, clown, comedian and friend​2 years ago Bill and his amazing wife Martha Roth were honored here at our Legacy Gala. They are community treasures who have given so much to our community. They have supported our events, children, families at Nyack Center and so many other community non-profits. We wish them the best as they embark on their new journey. They will be missed. Of course Martha and Bill will always have a welcome home here at Nyack Center.With Love,​Kim Cross, Executive Director

Bill is pictured on the right with another honoree, Ivan Rudolph-Shabinsky performing an original song!

Nyack Center more than a community building, a place for building community through...events, which create opportunities for residents to share proud traditions and shape the future. Nyack Center is the site where people historically pushed to the margins are welcomed and celebrated. Nyack Center embodies many of the qualities that make Nyack a community that people far and wide always consider home. It is fitting that Nyack Center is located in the heart of our beloved community because Nyack Center represents the soul of the community.

​Dr. Lori MartinAssociate Professor at LSUAuthorNative Nyacker

Bench by the Road 2015

Dr. Lori Martin is the author of "The Ex-Slave's Fortune: The Story of Cynthia D. Hesdra." It was the story of Cynthia Hesdra that inspired Nyack's Bench by the Road project.

The Nyack bench is 15 in a series of benches throughout the United States. The Toni Morrison Society's "Bench by the Road" project was inspired by comments the writer made about the lack of recognition for the history of enslaved Africans. "There is no place you or I can go, to think about or not think about, to summon the presences of, or recollect the absences of slaves," Morrison told The World magazine. "There is no suitable memorial, or plaque, or wreath, or wall, or park, or skyscraper lobby. There's no 300-foot tower, there's no small bench by the road. ... And because such a place doesn't exist ... the book had to." Nyack's Bench by the Road was dedicated to Cynthia Hesdra last May 2015.

Link to lohud video of the dedication day-http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/05/18/toni-morrison-speaks-at-bench-dedication/27562767/

​Who Was Cynthia Hesdra?-reprinted fom Nyack Sketch LogCynthia Hesdra was born a slave in Tappan, New York in 1808 to John and Jane Moore. Cynthia’s father, one of the wealthiest men of his time, owned and operated a mill in Sparkill. He also constructed mill wheels that were said to have produced blankets for soldiers fighting in the Civil War.She eventually met and married a man by Edward Hesdra, the son of a white Virginia planter and a free black woman from Haiti. After their marriage, the couple purchased Cynthia’s freedom. The two settled on Amity Street in New York City. Cynthia operated a successful laundry business in New York City and she owned several properties there.Eventually, she took her trade to Nyack, NY, where she also accumulated property and operated a business. Among the many properties owned by Cynthia and Edward, was a house located near the intersection of Route 9W and Main Street in Nyack that was part of the Historic Underground Railroad. The Hesdras were rumored to have been in charge of the station between Jersey City, NJ and Newburgh, NY. The house was destroyed during the period of Urban Renewal in the 1970s.When Cynthia Hesdra died on February 9, 1879, she was reportedly worth $100,000, the equivalent of 3 million in contemporary dollars. In 2010, Piermont Ave. between Hudson and Depew was renamed Cynthia Hesdra Way.

When we first moved here in 2007 I enrolled my daughter Nancy in African Drum lessons after school. We needed something for her to do after school, and this looked really unique. She loved it! Not long after that, we attended Monster Mash, and felt we'd really landed in the perfect town.

The next year in 2008 I volunteered to run figure drawing sessions through Hopper House for a few years. Hopper House was a great space, but was renovating and we could no longer be housed there. Nyack Center has given us the perfect space for us to continue our sessions. We've been able to flourish as a non-profit collective, and provide a place for young and old to grow their creative selves, as well as high-schoolers who need to develop their portfolios for college applications in the creative fields. Drum lessons, films, dancing, tutoring, concerts, winter indoor farmer's markets.. it all happens in Nyack Center. Such a versatile, giving place-aptly in the heart and IS the heart, of our community.

Thank you, Nyack Center.

Janet HamlinArtist and past Nyack Center Board Member

June 5th Save the Date!!!!!

While working with Nyack Center through Please Pick Project, I have had the pleasure of watching everyone on the Nyack Center staff take sincere joy in the positive experiences of the students that thrive there. The best kind of community is built at Nyack Center—one founded on love, caring, creativity and vision. Nyack Center has the caring and vision to do what’s good for kids, families and neighbors; thus, they cultivate the greatest good in our kids, families and neighborhoods. I’m proud to be part of the community that they are building. Suzanne FoleyPlease Pick ProjectFollow Please Pick Project on FacebookClick link button below to see Suzanne's Ted Talk

From Please PIck Project-Getting ready to start some cool organic gardening workshops at The Nyack Center after-school program! Plus, we're very excited to introduce a garden-to-table Please Pick culinary program for summer campers at Nyack Center. Thanks to our friend Maria and several local chefs, including Brian from O'D's Tavern, campers will visit the gardens in our edible town and learn how to create healthy, restaurant quality food!​

Rowathon 2016

Thank you to everyone who rowed, donated and cheered on our rowers at Rowathon 2016 this weekend! We are grateful to event sponsors and partners Rockland Rowing for making the event such a success!

Mulch Madness

Huge shout out to our mulchers Glenn Meyerson, Nick Howard, Jill Lobo and Jen Smith! Mulch was delivered last weekend and will continue this week. We couldn't do it without the amazing team of our Corporate Sponsor Superior Waste & Carting!

Men Cooking-June 5, Save the Date

A number of years ago I attended an emergency meeting hosted by Nyack Center. This community summit featured village leaders of government, schools, law enforcement, and community activists. The standing room only gathering focused on serious incidents that were threatening the safety and stability of the entire community. The intense exchange of honesty shared that evening, facilitated a rare dialogue between voices representing the unique perspectives of the village's ethnic, cultural and social-economic diversity. For me, that experience highlighted Nyack Center as possibly the one locale comfortable enough for these disparate neighbors to negotiate their heartfelt concerns and share a commitment for finding resolutions. Nyack Center is truly the village of Nyack's center, not only because of the multitude of programs, meetings and events conducted in its multi-purpose edifice; but also because of the place it holds in the hearts of people across this complex community. Congratulations Nyack Center on twenty-five years!Earl Miller, Nyack CollegeExecutive Director for Community RelationsTwo Term Nyack Center Board Member

Join us as we celebrate another milestone-Readings and Music in a Holiday Spirit celebrates its 20th year Sunday December 14 at 7pm.Event sponsor DocuwareTickets at www.nyackcenter.org

The Nyack Center is the ‘center’ of our community, both geographically and in our hearts. We assemble there to laugh, think, celebrate, cry and be the best of ourselves. I have produced dozens of shows there, some to raise money for the Center itself and others for ArtsRock, our non-profit in Rockland. Nothing is more gratifying than having those front doors open and see the community gather. I have one memory of a holiday show we created, only to have it snow so much the roads were almost impassable and we feared no one would come. Yet, one by one, people trudged through the snow to fill the place for an evening of shared joy.​Elliott ForrestWQXR /WNYCArtsRock.org​​

Co-produced and hosted by Kevin Pariseau & Elliott ForrestPerformances by Steven BernsteinDennis BoutsikarisSean FlemingSakina JaffreyNyack High School Advanced ChorusCause Kidzwith a special return appearance by Darrell Larson. ​This beloved annual event celebrates the holidays and puts the spotlight on local talent (often national celebrities) for the benefit of Nyack Center’s community and youth programs.

At the Nyack Center58 Depew Ave (corner Broadway) Nyack, NY

Readings & Music in a Holiday Spirit Tix $20 Adults and $7 Children To purchase tix or for information about the Nyack Center or its programs go http://http//www.nyackcenter.orgor call: (845) 358-2600

Nyack Center's 25 Anniversary Legacy Gala

This past Saturday,we celebrated our 25 Anniversary Congratulations and honored our community angels Chris & Bert Hughes and Sally & Roger Seiler! Thanks to overwhelming community support and a sold out crowd we netted $60,000 for our programs and Legacy Fund.

At the event, a generous donor offered "The Mark Jacobs Challenge Grant", a matching grant of up to $25,000 from now until Dec. 31st!

We have many people to thank-our amazing event chairs, fantastic committee, our honorees, our board, our staff, our sponsors,Ned Kelly, our advertisers, auction donors and everyone who helped make the night such a success! It was truly a spectacular 25 Anniversary!Our grateful thanks to each of you for your commitment to Nyack Center and our beloved community. As I said in my toast that night...

"Here's to this amazing place that began as a dream and made it through twenty five years of happiness and joy, sorrows and losses, and remained committed to our mission, each other and love through it all. To Nyack Center! To love!

Don't miss MADE BY HAND Art & Craft Fair this Sat. Nov. 21st!

Our Blog

Nyack Center staff & community members will be submitting posts following this year's theme, "We can be heroes"... We can all be heroes and make a difference in our world!...#nyackcenter #wecanbeheroes #community

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​Nyack Center - more than a community building; a place for building community.58 Depew AvenueP.O. Box 764, Nyack, NY 10960tel: (845) 358-2600fax: (845) 358-5364Nyack Center follows the Nyack Public School Calendar.Nyack Center's school-based programs and office are closed when school is closed.